BAU Meets CSI
by Nikki-9-Doors
Summary: Lucy Monroe-Messer is 20 years-old, dreams of becoming a Crime Scene Investigator, and lives in NYC. But what happens when she meets and falls for Henry LaMontagne - JJ's son - the funny, kind, and handsome boy with BAU dreams?
1. Chapter 1

_~~~ Technically, this is 20 years in the future, meaning the year is 2029. I am just going to write like it's 2009 though, because I don't want to get into all that what-will-the-future-be-like-? stuff. Hope this story doesn't disapoint. I've tried to get all the ages right, but it's been hard. Please correct me if I'm wrong!_

_Enjoy!~~~_

* * *

At nearly twenty years-old, Lucy Monroe-Messer was beautiful.

She'd never claim to be, and when anyone told her so she never accepted the compliment. But with the same smile, hair, and nose that her mother had had at her age, Lucy Monroe-Messer was easily a girl that others envied for her looks.

Lucy, unlike her mother, was very tall - five foot eight. She had bright blue eyes and very pale skin. Inevitably, she had taken after her parents and their fascination, love, and talent for science. Even when she was in elementary school, she'd come rushing home, extremely excited to let her mom and dad know that she now understood photosynthesis, metamorphoses, or whatever else she had learned that day.

Lucy wasn't an only child. Her brother, Jacob, was four years younger than her. And while Lucy looked a bit like their mom, Jake was the spitting image of their father. He did not, however, hold the same enthusiasm for science, nor did he intend to follow in their parents' footsteps as Lucy did. While Lucy was in love with her parents' world - New York City, crime investigation - Jacob was not.

Every summer Lucy and Jake would be sent to Montana. Lucy loved her grandparents dearly, but would grow restless within the second week. She was a city girl all the way to the bone, but her brother was the absolute opposite. NYC meant nothing to him - he lived for summer, and the state of Montana.

Now Lucy looked at herself in the mirror and gave herself a grin. It was Friday, May the fourth, and her birthday was in two days. Since they weren't yet of legal drinking age in America, she and her friends were going to cross the boarder to Canada in order to celebrate - in Ontario, the legal drinking age was only nineteen. Lucy would be back on Sunday, to celebrate the actual day of her birth with her family.

"Hey Lucy," her dad called from downstairs, the familiar accented voice travelling up the stairs and down the hall to the bathroom to reach her, "Your friends are here."

Lucy gave her lips one last dab of gloss before rushing down the stairs. She gave both her parents a kiss on the cheek as she began to head out the door.

"Don't forget to be back by Sunday," her dad reminded her. Lucy grinned at him and gave him a good-natured eye-roll. Like she could forget.

"And be careful!" her mom warned. Lindsay Monroe had ended up being a very protective mother.

"I know, I know," Lucy replied, "Love you both. See you soon!" she shut the door behind her and jumped into Jessica's car. She'd known Jessica since they were thirteen. In the backseat sat Marla and Avery, two girls she went to university with.

"Are you ready to party?" Jessica asked, a huge smile spread out on her face. When Lucy nodded, Jessica turned up the volume on the radio, and the car took off.

~~~***~~~

Some people joke that they were raised by wolves.

Henry LaMontagne had been raised by FBI agents.

He was taught how to operate computers by his aunt Penelope, learned how to get dates from his uncle Derek. When he reached adolescence, it was Uncle Spencer who stressed to never, _ever_ do drugs. It was due to Aunt Emily that he could speak both French and Spanish fluently. And he had to give credit to uncles Aaron and Dave for teaching him there was a time for play and a time for work.

There were the FBI kids, too. Marianna, who Aunt Penelope and Uncle Kevin adopted from China five years after Henry himself was born. Tyler and Spencer, Uncle Derek's twins sons who were six years younger than Henry. Lily, Uncle Spencer's daughter, who was not quite four years younger and, ironically, had a learning disability.

But then there was Jack, and that was who Henry had always bonded with the most.

Jack was the closest in age to Henry, only two years older. Because of Jack's parents being divorced, Henry didn't see him as much as he saw the other kids when he was younger. But then when Henry was in fourth grade and Jack sixth, Jack's mother, Hailey, remarried and moved back into the area, so Jack and Henry ended up in the same school.

They saw one another a lot then, because Henry's mom and Jack's dad told them to look out for one another. And somehow, slowly, a friendship formed.

As children of the BAU, Henry, Jack, and all the others had attended quite a few things. The marriage of Kevin and Penelope in Vegas, which was never made official; the retirement party for Dave, which was technically his second one; and of course, every time there was a crime, they'd end up being babysat by one parent or another.

Hailey, Jack's mother, always refused to babysit or let her son be babysat. The twins mother and Derek's wife, Alicia, was always kind but often busy with her own work - she, like Henry's mother, was a liaison. Henry's father had joined the police force in Virginia, which often meant he couldn't babysit either, nor could Uncle Kevin. It was widely known and accepted that the person who the "BAU Babies" (as they had been nicknamed) liked to be looked after by the most was their Aunt Natalia.

Aunt Natalia was Uncle Spencer's longtime girlfriend and Lily's mother. Like Aunt Penelope and Uncle Kevin, Uncle Spencer and Aunt Natalia had never officially been married. There was a nice ceremony in Vegas, but unlike Penelope's and Kevin's, it was old-fashioned and elegant, put on mostly just for Uncle Spencer's mother.

While being taken care of while their parents were out of town happened almost weekly, the event that Henry always remembered the most was funerals. He didn't go to most of them, but his mother would be upset - all the BAU agents would be - and it was at this time that the BAU Babies would have to be babysat by a neighbour, instead.

Henry counted the funerals out on his fingers. Mrs. Reid, Spencer's mother, who'd died when Henry was eight; Elle Greenaway, an agent who'd left long before Henry was even born, who had died of cancer when Henry was ten; Jordan Todd, who'd covered for his mother while she was on maternity leave, was killed in the line of duty when Henry was eleven; one of Uncle Morgan's sisters was hit by a drunk driver when Henry was thirteen; then when he was sixteen, Aunt Emily's mother had died - that one had made the news.

Now Henry was twenty, and had past the age of needing to be babysat a long time ago. Today, too, was a funeral, but Henry was going to this one. "He'd have wanted you to," his mother explained tearfully, "Oh Henry, if I could have asked for one thing in life, it would have been that you could have met him."

Jason Gideon.

The name meant little to Henry, but when the news had reached the BAU the entire team was crushed. More than twenty years later, each member could remember exactly the day when Gideon had left them. Spencer - for Henry had dropped the "aunt" and "uncle" a long time ago, once he realized that the agents weren't actually related to him - seemed especially upset.

Henry heard his phone ring and rushed to answer it. He didn't live with his parents anymore - had moved into his own apartment - but they were constantly checking up on him. This time though, when he picked up the phone, it was Jack Hochner.

"Hey Jack," Henry said.

"You going to the funeral?" Jack asked.

"Yeah."

"I'll pick you up." Then Jack hung up, without saying goodbye. He was often like that, gave out just the basics and didn't waste time on anything else. Jack was a lot like his father. He even looked like his father, with the same dark eyes and dark hair - a fact which Henry knew drove Jack's mother up the wall.

Henry hear the buzzer about ten minutes later and knew his friend had arrived. He went down the stairs, not the elevator (he only ever used the elevator if such a thing was unavoidable, due to Derek and Spencer's - _especially_ Spencer's - fear of it, a fact which Henry's mother found incredibly funny) and found Jack waiting outside. They were outside of the funeral home within minutes.

Jason Gideon had wished to be cremated, not buried, so there was a small ceremony of sorts, honouring all that he'd done in his lifetime. The other BAU Babies were already there, and Jack and Henry went to join them.

"Hello," said Jack to Marianna, Tyler, Spencer, and Lily.

"Hey," Henry added. They all replied with their own greetings, and Henry assessed them all.

Tyler and Spencer were identical, and today they wore dark suits with navy-coloured ties. The twins were the youngest of all the BAU Babies at fourteen, but they took after their dad in physique. Tall and muscular, both of them could pass for sixteen, or possibly even eighteen.

Lily Reid, who _was_ sixteen, looked about twelve. She was maybe five feet tall and skinny, like a twig. She was flat as a board - but still very pretty. Her hair was long and brown, curling slightly, her eyes wide and hazel. She wore a long black dress and tears fell from her eyes, despite the fact that, like Henry and the other BAU Babies, she'd never met the man they were mourning.

Then there was Marianna, a year younger than Lily. Like Lily, she was incredibly thin, however she was also incredibly tall. Her sleek black hair was pulled up in two high pigtails, her ebony eyes hidden behind glasses with bright red frames. She wore a pink miniskirt with striped pink-and-black leggings, a tight white tank top with a faux-leather jacket over top, and knee-high black boots. Not exactly funeral wear, Henry couldn't help but notice.

"What?" snapped Marianna when she saw him staring, "This is supposed to be a celebration of life. Mom's dressed in yellow." Following Marianna's gaze, Henry noted that, yes, her mother was in yellow. Penelope always had interesting outfits, but it wasn't the outfit that caught his attention right now - rather, it was the woman whose shoulder Penelope was weeping on. Henry figured he'd better go say hello to his mom.

Jennifer Jareau was in her mid-fifties, her hair just beginning to grey. She had some wrinkles on her forehead, along with both smile and laugh lines, but for the most part she was aging gracefully. Now seeing her only son approach her, she gave him a sad, small smile before enwrapping him in a hug. His godmother Penelope joined in the hug, both woman openly sobbing.

Henry extracted himself from the hug, looked around wildly for his father and Kevin. Instead he spotted his godfather Spencer, who everyone called Reid, except for Henry.

Spencer Reid was in his late forties now, but when Henry compared pictures of the BAU team now and the BAU team twenty years ago, it didn't look like Spencer had aged at all. Same height, same skinny frame, same too-long brown hair, same purple bags under his eyes.

"Henry," Spencer Reid said now, "Nice to see you." very formal, despite the fact that Henry had seen him two months ago for his godfather's birthday.

"Uncle Spence. How you holding up?" Ok, so he still _called _them "aunt" and "uncle". He just didn't _think_ of them that way.

Spencer's eyes were watery and his face was grim, but there was no all-out crying for him. He pushed some of his hair behind his ear. "He…he meant a lot to me." Spencer replied by way of explanation. What he didn't tell Henry was that, when he had imagined Gideon's death, he hadn't imagined it like this. Hadn't imagined receiving word from Hoch that Gideon had died in his sleep, been found days later and that it had been his son who decided the FBI deserved to know. Ideally, Reid had always thought that he and Gideon might reunite first, so that Reid could show the man who'd been like a father to him all that he'd done with his life. But in the back of his mind, he always worried that they'd be called to a crime scene one day only to end up looking down at Gideon's corpse. This was better, he supposed. Dying in their sleep was how everyone wanted to go. Reid knew the statistic. But that didn't matter to him. Dead was dead, and the fact that Gideon _was_ was just…horrible.

As the last of the guests arrived, the ceremony began. Jason Gideon's son said a few words, as did Jack's father, and a couple more people Henry didn't really recognize.

Near the end, he heard his mother's phone ring and watched as she exited the building. When she returned minutes later, it was only to round up the team. Henry knew what that meant. Sure, they were at a funeral, and the BAU's emotional well-being was clearly a bit fractured - but crime never stopped.

Not even to mourn.


	2. Chapter 2

_~~~ I don't know the exact schooling for how long it would take in order for Lucy to be a CSI and Henry to be a profiler, but for simplicity's sake I'm making it five for each of them. I've also decided they get June-September off. And the thing with Emily's and JJ's vacation days may not happen in the FBI, but I do know it does sometimes happen in real life, or at least where I live. _

_ So, now that that's done with, enjoy! ~~~_

* * *

Lucy returned home early Sunday morning ever-so-slightly hungover. She unlocked the door of the house and crept in. It was six o' clock and she didn't expect anyone to be up, but wasn't altogether surprised to find that her father was.

"Hey, Luce. How was the big weekend?" he asked quietly, so as not to wake Lindsay or Jake.

Lucy smiled. "Fun." she replied honestly, "I'm going to go shower now, and get dressed." she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, no makeup, her hair not even brushed, and reeked of sweat and beer because she hadn't showered since Saturday morning and they had spent all Saturday evening partying.

She made her way upstairs, emerging an hour later feeling fresh and clean, wearing a long-sleeved tight black scoop-neck shirt and a pair of jeans that flared at the bottom, her hair combed and hanging long, gold hoops dangling from her ears.

"There's my girl," said her dad when she came down, "Guess I'd better wake up your mom. If one of the team calls, give 'em the deets for me, ok?"

Lucy nodded as she made her way into the living room and flicked on the TV. The team that her dad referred to was, obviously, the CSI team that Lucy worshipped, loved, and looked up to.

Her godfather, Mac, was the head of it all. When she was five, Lucy had been the flower girl at his and Stella's wedding. They didn't have any children together, but they always spoiled Lucy, and Stella was one of those awesome adults - the kind who taught Lucy how to put on makeup, who took her shopping for her first pair of heels, and who let her look at evidence whenever Lucy was brought into the office.

Then there was Don, who always insisted Lucy use his first name and never his last like the team did, because that way it felt less like he was taking care of a victim or a suspect (or so he claimed). He was the closest to the family - coming over for dinner, or to watch the game with her dad and Jake - probably because he didn't have any family of his own. No wife, not even a girlfriend that Lucy could remember, and no child. When she'd asked her mother why that was, Lindsay had told Lucy because sometimes things just worked out that way. It had been Stella who explained to her that, just after Lucy was born, Don's girlfriend - another cop - had been killed. It had broken his heart, and she theorized that he was too scared to love anyone again, in case they were killed too.

Adam had a family, though - a son, Arthur, who was the same age as Jake. Adam had broken the pattern of forming a relationship with someone in the field and ended up meeting, dating, and marrying a woman two years younger than him named Ellen, who was a writer. At one point Adam and Ellen had had a daughter, Selene, but she died inexplicably at six months old. Cot death, Lucy heard people call it.

Hawkes - Lucy called him by his last name like everyone else did - had two daughters, Anna and Jacqueline. They were both much younger than Lucy was; ten and twelve. Anna and Jacqueline's mother, a woman named Lizabeth, had divorced Hawkes about five years earlier. It was later learned (although this was never told directly to Lucy, she eavesdropped) that Lizabeth had been having an affair.

When Lucy said she would celebrate her birthday with her family, that's what she meant. Jake, Mom, Dad - plus the team, their spouses, and their children. They were all going out for breakfast, and then probably to Central Park, although it was only early May and not quite warm enough yet to comfortably spend the entire day there.

There was one member of the team and her "family" that would not be attending, though, and that was Sid. He'd lived long enough for Lucy to remember him - up until she was fifteen - and then caught pneumonia, ultimately dying. Not only had the team been saddened, but Lucy had cried and cried. Sid was like an eccentric grandfather, with all these strange facts stored up in his mind, and when she was a child he _always_ had candy for her.

The team was getting up there in age. Mac was old enough to retire, but it shocked no one that he didn't. Lucy's parents were about the same age now than Mac had been when Lucy was born. Lucy figured that everyone was just waiting for someone else to do it first. Once her father retired, for example, Don likely would too. Maybe Adam and Hawkes would hold out for a few more years - they were a bit younger - but eventually they would go. Sid had died while still employed. Lucy couldn't imagine why anyone would want to live their whole life working, but she imagined it was for the simple fact that the job was addictive.

While flipping channels, Lucy waited for the phone to ring, but it never did. By eight thirty, her mother and brother were both up and dressed, and ready to go in order to be at the restaurant by nine.

The Monroe-Messer family still lived in NYC, but in a small two-floor condo. There was three bedrooms, two bathrooms (but only one had a shower/tub), a kitchen and a living room. It was small, but it was enough room for them to live comfortably, besides which Lucy planned on moving out just as soon as she was finished with school.

"Lucy," said her mother, "You want to open up your present from us here, or at the restaurant?"

"The restaurant," Lucy replied easily. Her mom had short brown hair, but she'd had to dye it brown for a couple years now ever since it had started going grey. Lucy was taller than her mother, and always took it as a compliment when people said she looked like her.

"Alright kid, time to go." her dad said as he walked into the room. When she was younger Lucy could remember him wearing contacts, but now he wore glasses again. His hair, which had always been brown/blonde in colour, was now showing the occasional strand of grey. Lucy was only slightly shorter then him. Jacob had the same brown/blonde hair and the same blue eyes, but was the tallest in the family at exactly six feet. Sixteen years old, he had every girl at his high school chasing after him, for not only did he get his father's looks but also his humour, brains, and kind-heartedness.

The family headed outside, hailed a cab, and were at the restaurant in about twenty-five minutes due to the traffic. Mac and Stella, who were always the first to arrive, were already there and had taken a seat at their reserved table-for-thirteen. Don showed up next, followed by Hawkes and his two girls, then, lastly, Adam and his family.

The table broke out into chatter. Jake and Arthur began debating about the Xbox versus the Wii; Anna played hangman on the back of her paper-placemat against Jacqueline and Mac; Hawkes, Don, Danny, and Adam discussed basketball; Lindsay inquired about Ellen's next novel; and Stella turned to Lucy.

"So, twenty. A real adult. How do you feel?" Stella asked.

"I'll feel much better in three years when I can be solving crimes like you and my parents and the rest of the team." Lucy admitted, and Stella laughed.

"I remember when your mother was in the hospital. We were walking around, and she was so nervous she was going to be a bad mother. I think she did ok." Stella smiled, and Lucy grinned back.

"Of course," Stella added with a chuckle, "She swore that she'd never have another child, and obviously she didn't stick to her word there!"

"I wish she had. Then I could be an only child, and not have to deal with Jacob-the-annoying!" Lucy joked.

After the waitress had came and gone with their food, crepes were ordered for everyone because it was decided that it was too early for cake. This was fine with Lucy, as she actually enjoyed crepes much more.

Then came the presents.

"Thank you so much!" Lucy exclaimed to each one she received, whether it was a gift certificate or a pair of earrings or a fifty dollar bill.

Eventually she got to her parents gift (separate from Jake's, as he had given her three vanilla-scented candles, her favourite) which Lindsay Monroe-Messer had deliberately been saving until the end.

"Ok sweetheart, here it is," said her father, handing over the small, elegant black box with the purple ribbon and bow. Carefully she opened it to find a long silver chain with a silver, circle-shaped charm hanging off of it. On the back was engraved _Happy Twentieth, Love Mom & Dad_ but on the front there was nothing, just a shimmery, silver surface.

To some girls, it might not have been enough. They might have demanded rubies, or gold. But to Lucy it was beautiful and she stared down at it in wonder until, gingerly, she picked it up and handed it to Stella, turning her back to her and pulling up her hair. "Will you put it on for me, please?" she asked. As Stella did the clasp, Lucy turned to her parents. The whole table was waiting in silence for her reaction.

Lucy's face broke out into a grin. "I love it! Thank you so much!" then she got up from her seat in order to kiss both mother and father on the cheek. "Thank you so much."

~~~***~~~

Henry had been born in November, the day after Remembrance Day, and that was winter enough for him. Yes, he was a winter baby - but he hated cold weather.

May wasn't, in his mind, supposed to be cold. It was spring, and spring meant flowers blooming and sun shining. April showers bring May flowers, and all that. But instead there was a cold chill in the air as Henry walked down the streets of Quantico, Virginia, his coat zipped up all the way and his numb hands jammed into the pockets.

Naturally, being raised by FBI agents had inspired his own dream of becoming one. When he was really little, he told people he wanted to be a genius, which to most made him sound a little stuck-up but made sense to those who knew Henry's connection to Spencer Reid. At around the same age that little girls realize in order to grow up to be a princess they need to marry a prince, Henry realized that an eidetic memory and an IQ of 187 was not something you could just _obtain_.

A profiler seemed like the job for him, so he had taken a few courses that Hoch had mentioned he might need. But in the end, Henry found himself going to school for law, just like Jack was.

Jack wanted to be a lawyer, as his father had originally been, and as his grandfather had been. Henry didn't really want to be a lawyer, but knew it upped his chances of becoming part of the FBI and, in due course, the BAU. Now that he was two years into it, law was actually more interesting that he thought it would be, but that didn't sway him from his overall goal.

Henry pushed the door open to his apartment building, climbing the stairs to the third floor before pulling out his keys and entering his apartment. The button on the phone was flashing, so Henry checked the messages.

"Henry," it was his father, "Come over for dinner tonight. Your mother has something she'd like to tell you." the message clicked off, and Henry rolled his eyes, slightly irritated. His father wasn't very good with detail. An easygoing man, he always assumed that everyone else could, like him, drop everything in a moment's notice. Henry checked the time. Six twelve. He'd better get going.

So, although he had just gotten back, he went down the stairs once more, this time into the garage to get his car. His parents' house - the house where he'd grown up - was fifteen minutes away if he drove, nearly half an hour away if he didn't.

His father let him in when he got there and Henry could smell lasagne and hear voices coming from the kitchen. When he walked in his mother exclaimed, "There he is! What took you so long, Henry?"

"I didn't get the message until -"

_"Message!"_ his mother squawked. She turned to her husband, "You said you reached him!"

His father, unconcerned, shrugged. "I lied." he admitted easily.

Everyone laughed and JJ served her son some of the pasta, reheating it first. He, apparently, wasn't the only one invited over. Emily was there too. She was about the same age as his mother, only a few years older, and had never gotten married or had children although she'd had three serious boyfriends since Henry had been born.

"What'd you have to tell me?" Henry asked his parents after saying hello to his second godmother of sorts.

"Well, actually," his mother replied, "It's more Prentiss's news." she made a face, "Emily's news, I mean." his mom always did her best to refer to her colleagues by their real names when they weren't out working, but sometimes she'd slip up.

All the same, Henry turned his attention to Emily. "What is it, Aunt Emily?" he asked.

"Well, I've accumulated so much vacation days that I've actually been forced in to using them or else I forfeit them all. So, I'm taking the entire summer off and spending it in New York City. It was the one place I didn't get to go to as I child that I always wanted to visit, and whenever I go with the BAU, well, there are bigger thing on my mind than touring."

"Ok…" said Henry, not quite understanding.

Emily shot his mother a look, and JJ asked, "Would you like to go with her, Henry?"

Henry's eyebrows shot up to the top of his head. "I…um…why?"

"Because the situation is the same with me. So many vacation days, I'm being forced, and I don't want to give them up. Since it's more or less mine and your father's twentieth year of marriage, we decided to go to France for the summer. We realize you're an adult now and living on your own, but Emily is willing to take you to NYC with her, and we're willing to foot the bill if you want to go."

"Now how can you say no to an offer like that?" Henry's father asked him.

Henry shrugged. He supposed he couldn't. A summer in New York City would be pretty cool, especially if he didn't have to pay a thing, and if his parents would unworriedly let him because an adult they knew would be watching out for him. That really rocked!

"Yeah, ok." he agreed, with a nod. "That sounds pretty great. Thanks."

And just like that, his summer was set.

* * *

_~~~ The first two chapters were so you'd have an idea how the future is like. The next few would get more into the romance. I'm not updating until I get a review (anonymous or otherwise, and HerMyatt, Flinchymcflinchster, you two don't count) because that way I know people would actually like to read this. Thank you for your time! ~~~_


	3. Chapter 3

_~~~ Thanks for the reviews! Ok so, here is the next chapter! (Yeah yeah, I know. You're all just kind of rolling your eyes at me going, "Duh". Sorry.) ~~~_

_

* * *

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--- One Month Later {June} ---

The first day of summer vacation, and Lucy woke up at six forty-five just as she had been doing all year. At first, she blamed it on some sort of mental alarm clock; her body was used to waking up at such a time and so it did anyway, not realizing that for the next three months sleeping in until eleven was encouraged one hundred percent.

But then Lucy heard it. The incessant beeping, droning on and on at a volume much too loud. She knew where it was coming from, too - Jake's room, obviously, as his school didn't finish up for another week. She groaned and pulled herself out of bed, padding down the hall and sticking her head into her brother's room.

The jerk was asleep. He was sleeping right through the noise - and, now that Lucy stood right in front of the source of the sound, it was like a car alarm going off - while she, on her first day of summer vacation, was awake. Lucy couldn't stand for that. She ripped the plug out of the wall, silencing the alarm and already planning what god-awful thing she could do to her god-awful brother when, suddenly, he woke up.

"Lucy?" he asked, his vioce still groggy as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, "What are you doing in here?"

"Planning ways to kill you!" she snapped, with an eye-roll and an exasperated sigh.

"Mom and Dad would find out it was you in, like, a day." Jacob pointed out as he rolled out of bed and exited his room, heading for the shower, "You're in the system! Remember?"

This was true. Lucy had been printed at three years old, then again at five, and eight, and ten, and sixteen. It wasn't as though she were a major lawbreaker. At first, when she was little, it had been fun. As she got older, not so much. But her parents, slightly paranoid after nearly thirty years on the job, felt better that she was in the system. Their twisted rationale was that they could always find her, and although Lucy had aspirations to be just like them, deep down she knew - and her parents knew - that her fingerprints would only help find her if she was either breaking the law, or dead. And she wondered: if such was the case, would her parents really want to find her then? Or would they rather believe that she was out in the world somewhere, having fun and being good?

Lucy headed downstairs where her parents were both bustling around, getting ready to head out the door in order to be at work for seven. "Mornin' sweetheart," her father said, stopping shortly to drop a kiss on her forehead.

"Lucy!" her mother exclaimed, "What are you doing up? I wanted you to sleep in. It's your first day of summer vacation."

Lucy shrugged, "Blame Jake." she said before heading into the kitchen, grabbing herself an apple and biting into it.

"Have a nice day! We love you!" Lucy heard both her parents call as they left the house.

"You too!" Lucy yelled back, but Danny and Lindsay had already shut the door behind them.

Jacob came bounding down the stairs a few minutes later, hair still wet, which was when Lucy took her leave from the table in order to get showered, get dressed, and get on with her day.

The siblings were both leaving the house at eight twenty. "Where are you going?" Jacob asked.

"I don't know." Lucy replied boredly, "Out."

"Out. Meaning, you're meeting up with Jessica. Lame."

"You never know," Lucy countered as Jacob locked the door behind them and they entered onto NYC's busy streets, "I could be meeting a guy."

"Yeah right. I don't think so." Jacob snorted.

Lucy raised her eyebrows at the insult, but then she smirked. "Well," she said with a shrug, "Have fun at school." and then she turned right and her brother turned left, and they went on their seperate ways.

~~~***~~~

Henry slowly opened his eyes, yawned, stretched, and got out of bed. Outside, he could hear horns blaring and people hollering - the same noise that had woken him up. It was his own fault, Henry knew; he had left the window open last night before falling asleep sometime around one AM.

Exiting the bedroom, he surveyed the rest of the apartment. There was a small table with two chairs, a refrigerator and a stove, and some counters lined against the wall, on top of which sat a microwave and a radio. Some empty space, but nothing else other than that, the walls bare, painted a dull white. His bedroom was the only other room, and it was quite small, the bed queen-sized, with a plastic desk crammed in and an out-of-date telivision resting on top. No computers for him. He'd have to go to the library for that.

Still, it was his own for the summer, which wasn't as impressive as it might have been when he was seventeen due to him having a better one back in Quantico. But his parents were paying for it all - the apartment, and they'd supplied him with cash for food and sightseeing - so Henry was happy enough. There was lots to do in NYC, right? And he deserved some fun times after a long, hard year of studying.

Henry checked his watch. It was nine o' clock, and he was supposed to meet Emily for breakfast at ten. She had rented a better place a couple blocks away, but they'd toured the neighbourhood yesterday afternoon checking out the scene, and discovered a quaint little eatery. Nearly five hours spent driving yesterday in order to reach their destination had been hell, especially when, once they had arrived and unpacked, it ended up being about six at night. And while that might not have been so bad for Henry, who could've hit a club, it left Emily with nothing much to do. So Henry, feeling bad, had stuck with her for the remaining hours of the day before escaping back to his apartment at about nine.

Then he'd watched some lame reality TV shows before calling it a night. So, overall, not the greatest start to what he hoped to be a somewhat exciting summer. But today, he promised himself as he threw on some clothes and brushed his teeth, would be different.

~~~***~~~

Lucy flipped open her cell phone, checking the time once again. Nearly ten fifteen. Where _were_ her stupid friends?! Marla and Avery (not Jessica, as she had gotten out of university two days lbefore and had left to spend the week with her father, who lived in New Mexico) had promised to meet her here at nine forty, which had past long ago. It wasn't so much that Lucy didn't mind waiting, but the waitors seemed to be getting a bit ticked off with her as she prolonged ordering for the umpteenth time.

She twisted her silver necklace between her fingers, something she now did when she was anxious. She figured her friends had probably gotten caught up window shopping or flirting with a guy, but still. The waiter came by again, a short man who looked to be in his thirties. "Miss?" he inquired.

"Um..." Lucy looked down at the menu, perplexed. "Just...a glass of orange juice, please?" As the waiter moved on disappointedly, Lucy frowned. It wasn't even like she was hungry - she'd had that apple earlier on, after all, and she could usually go for a long time on little until her stomach began to growle. But upsetting people made her upset, and flustered, even when it wasn't her fault. She looked around the restaurant, settling on a blonde guy across the room. She could only see the left side of his head, but she smiled a little to herself, momentarily distracted as she thought to herself, _Well he's rather attracticve, ins't he?_ His hair was a bit shaggy, falling just below his ears, and a nice, soft blonde colour. He looked strong, and by the set of his jaw, maybe even stubborn. She watched him without really even meaning to do so, then turned her attention to the woman sitting across from him, who looked about her mother's age. Lucy wondered if she was _his _mother, but then dismissed this thought as they looked so unlike that she didn't even think it could be possible. She wondered what colour his eyes were.

He turned towards her at that moment and their gaze locked before Lucy looked down at the table, examining her hands. Blue. They had been a deep, beautiful blue, Lucy could tell even from all the way over where she was sitting.

Then, he stood up, started walking towards her. Lucy wasn't staring any more, but could still see him coming from the corner of her eye. Her heart started beating faster, even as she mentally commanded it not to do so.

And then, "Hi," said the boy a bit awkwardly, now right in front of her table. "I'm Henry."

She couldn't help but think that it was such a nice name.

~~~***~~~

"Oh, look at that poor thing over there." said Emily as she took a bite of her toast, "Waiting for someone."

"Seriously? You're that good? You can tell she's waiting for someone just by looking at her?" Henry swivelled in his seat, where the girl across the room was speaking to a waiter - the same one who'd served them - her cheeks flushed. He turned back to Emily Prentiss. They never ceased to amaze him, the profilers.

"No!" Emily laughed, "But she was here before we were, still hasn't ordered anything, keeps checking her watch...probably stood up by some jerk."

"Oh yeah? That happen to you before?" Henry joked.

Emily fixed him with a look. "You should go talk to her." she said simply.

"Uh, I don't think so, Aunt Emily!" Henry replied.

"Oh come on. What, is she not your type?"

"My...type?!" Henry sputtered, looking over at the girl once again. He startled a bit when she found he was looking right at him, and their eyes met. She hastily looked away, but it was too late. When Henry turned back towards Emily, she was smirking.

"Fine." he muttered.

It wasn't as though the girl - or woman, rather - wasn't pretty. She was. Very. More than pretty, actually. But Henry had dated girls attractive girls before, and couldn't quite say he enjoyed the experience. They were always worrying about their hair or makeup, making him wait sometimes a whole extra hour when he arrived to pick them up if they weren't ready yet. And it wasn't like ugly girls made better girlfriends or anything, but Henry had stopped persuing beauties a long time ago.

Then he was at her table, and the only thing left to say was. "Hi." and then: "I'm Henry."

"Oh..." the girl was blushing again, then smiling despite herself, brushing some hair out of her eyes. "I'm Lucy."

"Can I ask..." Henry cleared his throat, then tried again, "Are you meeting anyone here?"

"I'm supposed to be meeting my friends, but that was a while ago. So right now, I seem to be alone."

"How unfortunate."

"Yes, very much so." The girl, Lucy, agreed. Her flashed her a grin, and she grinned back. _Dammit,_ thought Henry,_ this girl sure can smile_.

"Maybe I'll have to join you, then."

"Maybe..." Lucy faultered, but only for a second, "Maybe I'll have to ask you for your number."

"Do I get yours?"

"I asked first."

"Got a pen?"

Lucy fished one out of her first, and Henry wrote his cell-phone number out on the napkin next to her. In return, Lucy then wrote hers out on the napkin set out for Marla or Avery (whichever one).

Just as Henry was about to sit, or crack a joke, or something (he hadn't yet decided what, exactly - was still narrowing down the options) two girls burst into the restaurant in a flurry of apologies and waving arms.

"Luce!"

"We're so sorry!"

Both began before stopping short, realizing that their friend had company.

"Well," Henry began before settling on, "I'll call you."

"Yeah," Lucy shrugged, "That's what they all say.

"Ah," Henry agreed, "But I mean it."

And, as he made his way back to his and Emily's table, he really did.

_

* * *

_

_~~~ Just want to put one more little disclaimer-like thing in. Ok, two. First, I do not own either Criminal Minds or CSI:NY. Second, I don't live in NYC. Know nothing about it, except for the stuff that is featured on CSI:NY. Therefore, I am making up random stuff about it. Sorry. ~~~_


	4. Chapter 4

_~~~ Thank you for adding my story to favourites and for reviewing and for simply just reading!!! :-) ~~~_

* * *

He meant to call Lucy. He hadn't been lying when he said he would.

And yet, he didn't.

It wasn't like he lost her number, or lost interest, or even forgot. You could argue that the reason he didn't call her was a stupid one, but anyone who knew Henry would have told you it was a definite Henry-move.

Emily Prentiss and Henry left the restaurant about ten minutes later - Henry shooting Lucy a smile before he left. They walked down the street, deciding that since Central Park was so close it only made sense they should visit there, first. Just as the were about to enter it, Emily's cell-phone rang, and she stopped to take the call.

"Hello? What? Ok, Garcia, calm down." She motioned Henry to continue on and she'd catch up later, but he stayed put. After all, the BAU fascinated him. And furthermore, he didn't really know where to go.

"Alright...wait...well yes, that is unlike him. But consider the circumstances, Garcia. Gideon died about a month ago, none of has had any real time to mourn, and he and Reid -" a pause, and Henry could hear Penelope's voice speaking, but couldn't distinguish her words. "Are you kidding me?" Emily asked, "No way. Well tell Hotch no." Penelope briefly added something. "Well tell Rossi no!" Emily exclaimed.

Henry leaned against a lamp-post and tried to figure out what was going on. Had Spencer had some sort of breakdown? It seemed that way. He thought about Lily, crying although she'd never even met the man - Jason Gideon - who had died. And now what was going on? What was Emily so out-of-sorts about?

"Garcia-a-a-a!" Emily moaned, "It's my vacation!"

And this time, Penelope's words came loud and clear, so Henry heard them. "Well, buttercup, suck it up because the boss-men say too damn bad."

Emily snapped her phone shut with a click and turned towards Henry so quickly and so angrily that he almost fell off the sidewalk and into the sea of traffic.

"Sorry," she muttered, rubbing her forehead with one hand, "I'm sorry, Henry."

"That's ok. What's up, Auntie Em?" He knew it was risky - he'd been forbidden to call her that, ever, due to it's relation to _The Wizard of Oz_ - but the nickname managed to get Emily relaxed enough to crack a smile.

"There's a suspected serial killer here in NYC, and I've been asked to go in temporarily and lend a hand. You know, since I'm in the area and all." she rolled her eyes.

"What about Uncle Spencer?" Henry inquired.

"Reid?" Emily did a shake-her-head-and-shrug combination, "I'm sure he'll be fine. He's taken some time off and no one's really blinked an eye, but Garcia's concerned. 'He hasn't been acting like himself,' she says. She's worried he'll relapse. After twenty years, though?" Emily gave a long, shaky sigh, and Henry knew she was worried nonetheless. He knew about Spencer's former drug problem, but only vaguely; the only person to ever tell him anything about it had been Spencer himself, and even then he hadn't offered up much information, just that he had been an addict once after an UnSub kidnapped and tortured him.

"So then what are we doing now?" Henry asked.

"We? We are no longer a we. I'm going to the NYPD. You are touring New York. Just because I have to drag my ass back in to the land of the criminally insane doesn't mean you're cutting your summer holiday short."

"But I want to go!" Henry insisted, "It'll be fun for me!"

_"Fun?!"_ Emily barked, in shock.

Henry flinched. "Wrong choice of words," he admitted, "It'll be...informative. A learning experience."

"Exactly," Emily countered, "School. And it's not school for you - it's a break. So you'll treat it like one."

"I'm not a child!" he hissed, "Just let me come along!"

"Henry," Emily said in a deadly serious tone that meant the conversation was over, "I said no."

Henry grumbled to himself as he watched her walk away. She started checking back to make sure he was still going to Central Park, so he continued on his way.

Before stopping, turning around, and running through the crowds of people until he finally had Emily Prentiss in sight once more. She was staring intently at the screen of her cell-phone, meaning she was no doubt following the GPS device towards the police department. Henry was careful to stay a full three people behind her, but she never looked back again, and so he continued to follow her all the way to her destination.

~~~***~~~

"So who was he, Lucy?" Avery asked as the three friends navagated the NYC streets. Avery was about the same height as Lucy but_ lived_ in high heels. She had wavy red hair that fell past her shoulder, and spoke with a New Jersey accent. Marla was a brunette like Lucy, but her hair was darker, as was her skin, and she was shorter, maybe five two.

"Who was who?" asked Lucy absentmindedly, twisting her necklace around her fingers and wondering if he would call her. She did want him to. But she doubted he would. Was it stupid to doubt herself? She was smart, and kind, and it wasn't like she had a huge wort or something repelling. He'd call her, right? She mentally rolled her eyes at herself. Guys always made her feel self-concious, double-guessing herself, and she hated it.

"The guy!" both her friends exclaimed at once, bursting Lucy's thought bubble, "You know, the blonde one, at the restaurant?"

"Ohhh," Lucy blushed, then smiled, "His name is Henry."

"And?" Marla prompted.

"We exchanged numbers!" Lucy all but squealed. Her friends squealed back.

"That's great, Luce!" Avery enthused, "I mean, when was the last time you had a date?"

"Um...before my birthday?"

"Right." Avery rolled her eyes, "You're so...so...well, let's just say, if I had looks like yours - oh boy!"

"Stop it," Lucy blushed and giggled at the same time, "You're very pretty."

"Blah," Avery replied as they continued on their way.

Marla threw her head back and smiled up at the sunny sky, "Summer," she breathed, "Aren't you excited?"

"I'm just glad to be getting rid of Jake." Lucy said honestly. Her friends laughed.

"No, seriously," Marla said, "This summer...it'll be great. I can feel it!"

Avery and Lucy both rolled their eyes. "Honest to god, Mar." Avery snorted, "How corny!"

~~~***~~~

Emily Prentiss entered the police department and introduced herself to the first cop she saw, making sure to show her credentials, which she always carried on hand. "Ah," said the cop, "It's him you're looking for." and then, "Flack!"

Prentiss turned her attention to the man walking towards her. Tall, maybe a few years younger than herself, good-looking, she noticed without meaning to. "I'm Detective Don Flack," he said once he reached her, "And you must be the FBI they're sending over."

"Yes I'm Agent Emily Prentiss with the BAU."

"BAU. What's that mean again?"

"Behavioral Analysis Unit." Prentiss replied patiently.

"Right, right." Flack stopped for a moment, noticing a tall blonde guy lurking just inside the doors, hiding off to one side. Not only did he look like he was up to no good, but he was staring at the FBI agent - and Flack himself - with an amazing amount of interest.

"Hey," Flack said to Prentiss, "You know any blonde kids?"

"Any blonde ki - Oh, no." Prentiss frowned, turned around, and glowered. "Henry!" she hissed, "I told you to go tour!"

"I wanted to hear about the case." he chirped. Flack gave Henry a way glance, but when Prentiss nodded her approval he shrugged and decided to go on.

"We've got four dead men, all white, all in their early forties. All bodies show up in the Hudson, each one killed via strangulation. This is over a time period of two months." Flack explained matter-o-factly. "But how about I introduce you someone who knows these killings and cases better than any one else in here. I'll drive you -" Flack paused, adding as an afterthought, "- and your buddy, over to the lab. There you can talk to Mac Taylor, head of the CSI team that's been investigating."

"Thank you very much we'd appreciate that." Prentiss replied. She then said to Henry, "Just this one time now, Henry. I don't want you to be solving murders over your holiday."

"That doesn't sound like much of a holiday to me." Flack commented.

As for Henry, he was a goner. All thoughts fled from his mind. The napkin in his pocket with Lucy's number on it was set aside for the time being (although he remembered it, and looked forward to meeting up with her again), along with his plans to see the Statue of Liberty and find himself a place that gave him access to the internet. Instead, all his energy became focussed on one thing - this case. He was thoroughly immersed in it. He was so excited to try his hand at profiling. It would give him a jumpstart on the future.

It was a typical Henry-move, if you asked anyone he knew. But Lucy Monroe-Messer didn't know Henry that well. Not yet.

* * *

_~~~ I will try to write more, and I really want to write more, but this'll probably be the last update for a couple of days. This is due to the CSI:NY and CriMi premiers tomorrow (hooray!) my math homework (*sad*) and the fact that I will be away from Friday-Sunday. So sorry. Please, please, please review! (It's open for anonymous readers, too.) ~~~_


	5. Chapter 5

_~~~ I guess this fic is about to turn ever-so-slightly AU, and maybe a bit more than confusing, but here's how it's going to be: season six? Doesn't exist. In this fic, Danny was never in a wheelchair, and they were never shot at in a bar. Angell died, they caught her killer, and from there on, it's all my world. Thank you for understanding! ~~~_

* * *

Lucy wasn't a girl to sit in her room, play sad songs, and obsess over why a boy hadn't called her.

She was always very tempted by the idea, but she never actually went through with the action.

Which was why a week later on a Sunday morning she was helping her parents and brother load Jacob's luggage into the back of a taxi. Not wanting to waste any more time in NYC than necessary, Jake was leaving for Montana just two days after school had let out. Lucy, for the third time in a row, was happily - and somewhat guiltily - missing out on the experience.

"Eh Luce, hand me that bag over there, will ya?" her father requested, and Lucy moved from the small front yard (where she was resting momentarily on the miniscule patch of grass) to grab Jacob's last piece of luggage, a large red duffel bag which by the feel of it held most of his clothes.

Danny shut the trunk of the taxi with a bang. "Jake!" he yelled, "Get out here!"

Jacob came running from inside the house, positively beaming. Lucy could almost feel the happiness coming off of him in waves. She cringed.

Lindsay exited the house next, pulling her son close and giving him a kiss on the forehead. "I'll miss you," she told him.

"I'll miss you too, Mom." Jake replied, giving her a quick hug back.

Danny walked to the front of the car, handing a wad of bills to the cabbie through the window. To his son he said, "You sure you don't want us comin' down to the station with you?"

"I'm _positive_." Jacob assured him.

"Alright then. Hop in, kid." Jacob slid in to the backseat, and Danny shut the door behind him.

Lucy rolled her eyes. Jacob always felt the need to prove he was old enough, resourceful enough, smart enough, and/or mature enough to take care of himself. Fighting their parents until he was allowed to ride the taxi down to the train station by himself was just one small thing.

As the taxi rolled away, Danny put his arm around Lindsay. She murmured something about a cabbie killer and being trapped in the backseat. Danny murmured reassurances back. Lucy rolled her eyes again. Her mom always seemed particularily uncomfortable with the idea of riding in the backseat of a cab alone. Something to do with a case from way back long ago.

"Hey Mom," said Lucy once Jake's cab was out of sight and she and her parents were heading back into their home, "Do you know where any of the library cards are?"

Lucy was desperate for something to do, and watching movies didn't cut it. She needed a book, and she'd read all the ones at home (at least all the ones that interested her, anyway). She couldn't even go out and buy one - she was still searching for a summer job, and was therefore short on cash.

"Yeah, sweetie," her mother replied, "They're on top of the fridge."

~~~***~~~

Henry spent most of his time trailing after Emily, and when he wasn't doing that, he was in his room going over the case. He wrote everything down in blue pen, and would add his own note here or there - a suspicion, a possible profile - in red.

It was as he was following Emily down the street to the police deparment that she was visiting for the third time this week that she whirled on him. "Henry!" she snapped, "You're supposed to be enjoying yourself!"

"I am enjoying myself." Henry replied, rather nonchalantly.

"Not that way a twenty-year old should be."

"Uncle Spencer -" Henry began.

"Shut up, Henry!" Henry blinked, shocked at Emily's outbreak. She shook her head at him, a small smile pressing at her lips, and he knew she meant it good-naturedly. "I won't let you come with me this time. And if you follow me, so help me god, I will get those cops to lock you up for the day. Understood? Now, go do something, anything, just stay away from the case!"

Henry sighed, rolled his eyes, not liking the idea of missing out on such an opportunity. "Alright," he agreed, grudgingly.

"Promise me." Emily said.

"I promise. Jeez!" Henry exclaimed.

"Ok. I'll catch up with you later." Emily replied, smiling contentedly before continuing on her way.

If she had looked back a couple of time, Henry might have followed her anyway. But she didn't - she trusted him. It was probably a profiling trick, Henry realized, but he fell for it anyway. He paused, looking around him at the big, bustling city. There was a lot to do. But what would _he_ do?

The first answer that came to him was check his email.

~~~***~~~

Lucy walked to the library, the air hot and humid against her skin. She had thrown her hair up in a messy ponytail and wore a blue tank-top and a pair of denim short shorts. On her feet a bright orange pair of flip-flops thwacked against the sidewalk with each step she took and she had slung a small purse over her shoulder, containing her library card and wallet.

She reached the library and pushed the doors open, smiling as the air-conditioning hit her full blast.

In the fiction section she went through book after book after book, pursuing her favourite authors and checking in on favourite novels. Eventually, she narrowed her choices down to three, and was heading to the check-out desk when she saw him.

At the exact same time that he saw her.

~~~***~~~

Henry stepped into the first library he found, relishing the cool air, then discovering with glee a computer. He didn't have a card, so he had to ask one of the librarians for an access code and they looked down at him disapprovingly. Once on the internet and signed in to his email, Henry discovered that he had accumulated 157 emails in the span of seven days. Most were from the social networking sight on which he held an account. A few were junk mail, or chain mail. There were exactly seven from his parents (one for every day) and a whole wad of them from Penelope, who, when bored, loved to forward him links to funny videos or sometimes just ask him how his day was going.

After reading, replying, and deleting, Henry finally had his inbox cleared once more. He logged out of the computer, stood up, tucked in his chair, and looked up.

_Shit! _He thought as soon as he saw her,_ Oh no, oh no, oh no!_

He had meant to call her. Yesterday, he had been planning on doing it tonight. This morning, he had been thinking maybe tomorrow afternoon, ask her out to lunch. But now he realized that quite a long time had passed since they'd met - not tons of time, but enough to make him seem like a jerk.

He tried a smile, and she gave a polite smile back, but nothing more. No happiness, no caring, just the movement of muscles.

Henry walked over to her (she was standing between two tall lines of book shelves) and said, "Hi, Lucy. Good to see you again."

"Yeah," she replied, "I guess so."

Ouch.

"'I guess so'?" asked Henry before he realized what he was saying, "Isn't that kind of rude?" it wasn't until his words caught up with him that he realized he was "kind of" stupid.

Lucy arched her eyebrows, her eyes glittering. "Well now, maybe." she said, "Let's think. 'I guess so'...is that kind of rude? Or is saying, 'I'll call you' and then not kind of rude? Oh, but that's right. You _meant_ it."

It didn't matter that Lucy's sentence wasn't the most eloquent. She got her point across.

Henry gave an irresistable grin and leaned his arm across so that he balanced against one of the shelves. He leaned in just a bit closer to Lucy and said, in a low voice, "Come on now, sweetheart. I can make it up to you."

It was a Derek Morgan move, and ultimately, it was a stupid one.

Admittantly, Lucy's heart did skip a beat. Henry, like her, was dressed casually. Dressed in surfer shorts, a loose t-shirt, and black flip-flops, he had the whole "surfer dude" look down pat, especially with his blonde hair. But Lucy forced herself to focuss.

So, she glowered and in a cool tone replied, "I should slap you, you know. Any other girl would slap you. Really, Henry, who taught you that line?"

Henry moved back once again. "My Uncle Derek," he confessed, adding, "He's not my real uncle, it's just that he might as well be."

"Yeah? Well he must be some player."

"Nah. Just a former one."

Lucy looked Henry up and down, deciding what to do about him. Forgive him? Walk away? Instead she offered up, "I know what you mean, about uncles who aren't really your uncles. I have those too. And aunts." She couldn't tell you why she said it. It just came out.

Henry nodded. "Yup. Aunts for me, too. My mom's work friends."

"Ditto. What does your mom do?"

"Well, she's with the FBI, actually. A media liaison for the BAU team."

"Cool, my parents are working with one of those right now, actually. A BAU, FBI woman."

Lucy realized she'd said more than she'd wanted too. She didn't like talking about what her parents did for a living, although this came as a shock to many, especially considering how much she wanted to go into the same profession they had. But there were two reasons for this: one, she didn't like waving it in front of other people's faces. _My daddy solves murders la la la!_ She'd actually pranced along singing that once when she was a little kid. It wasn't much of a bragging right, but it still was one, and Lucy didn't like using it. The othe reason was because when she was eight her mom had said, "What your dad and I do, Luce, it can get a person enemies. Bad men and women who might want to hurt me and Dad for it, and maybe even hurt you. So just be careful who you tell, alright, sweetie?"

It wasn't that Lucy didn't tell people. Her friends knew, and when she was back in elementary school and the what-do-your-parents-do-for-a-living thing came up, she had readily let it spill. But she didn't tell random guys who took her number and forgot about her.

It was too late, however, because Henry instantly said, "Wait - are your parents cops for the NYPD?"

"Yeah," Lucy admitted with a sigh, "CSIs, actually."

"Oh, yeah. My aunt Emily, she's working with them. Well, I think. You're parents, who...?"

"Danny Messer and Lindsay Monroe-Messer. Yes, they're working with her. I remember. My parents tell me almost everything about their cases. Well, Dad does, anyway."

Lindsay didn't think it was necessary for Lucy to have to know such gruesome details. Lucy said _pfft_. She was twenty, and knew it all already anyway. Danny felt the same way.

"Wow. Well that's quite the coincidence. So -"

"So?"

"_So_, we'd probably run into each other eventually. I think it's Fate."

"Fate?" Lucy tried to portray ticked-off and I'm-so-much-more-mature-than-you, but it wasn't working. A grin spread across her face. Henry was getting to her. Yeah, he'd forgotten to call, but maybe he deserved another chance.

"Sure. You don't believe in Fate? I think it was Fate that we met."

"Really?" Lucy rolled her eyes.

"Yup. And I think it's Fate that we'll go on another date."

"Subtle." Lucy said with another eye roll. Then: "Well, you have my number."

"I do," Henry agreed, "But do you have any plans for tonight?"

"Well...no." Lucy admitted. Which was lame, she knew, but whatever. At least her parents would be happy; no her, no Jake. The house all to themselves.

"Perfect. I'll pick you up at six." Henry proclaimed.

"You don't know where I live." Lucy reminded him.

"I'll figure it out." Henry promised.

Lucy mustered up one last eye-roll before going to the check-out counter with her books.

Henry watched her go, watched her turn around and give him a small wave, watched her gracefully exit the library.

Then he jumped back on the computer and typed in 411's web address.

* * *

_~~~ Been a while since I posted...sorry...thanks to reviewers and readers! ~~~_


	6. Chapter 6

_~~~ And I know you're probably just really hyped up for Lucy and Henry to go on their first date, but I have a few more things to throw at them first. Sorry! ~~~_

_

* * *

_

Henry walked the couple of blocks down the street to Emily's summer apartment. After a moment or two of leaning on the buzzer, Emily let him into the building.

Three minutes later (she was on the fourth floor, and Henry had to both find and climb the stairs) he stood at her doorway, and she let him in. "Henry, if you're here about the case..." Emily warned.

"No, Aunt Emily," Henry replied, "I'm here to ask if I could borrow your car."

"Don't you know that no one drives in New York City?" she joked as she reached into the fridge and threw him a Coke. Henry popped the lid and took a sip, nodding his thanks.

"People drive." he replied once he had swallowed.

"No - they walk, or ride the subway, or take a cab."

"Oh." Henry settled himself on the couch. Her apartment was much bigger than his - about the same size as the one he lived in full-time.

"Do I get to know what plans you made that require the car?" Emily asked as she sat down at the kitchen table and opened her laptop, pressing the ON button.

Henry turned slightly red. "You remember that girl at the restaurant last week?"

This caught Emily's attention immediatley, and she paused momentarily from typing in her password. "The brunette who was waiting for someone?"

"Lucy." Henry said before adding, "Yes. Her."

Emily grinned and, in the same manner that she had often teased Dr. Spencer Reid many times before she said, "That's cute. You going to take her out to dinner?"

Henry shrugged, sipping his pop. "Guess so." he replied.

Absentmindedly Emily had opened an internet browser and logged on to her email. She was just about to remark how this would be his first date in NYC when one email caught her eye. From Garcia and marked URGENT, when she opened it she found one sentence.

_Reid ran away!!!_

"What?" Emily asked, shocked.

"Hmm?" Henry looked up from where he had been flipping through a TV Guide. Seeing the look of concern on his aunt Emily's face he asked, "What is it? What's the matter?"

Emily shook her head and jumped up from the table, running into her bedroom and scooping her cell-phone from her purse, which lay on the small table next to her bed. Henry followed and hovered in front of the doorway, barely jumping out of the way quickly enough when Emily immediatley pressed 5 (her speed-dial for Garcia) and swiftly exited the room, walking back down the hall to the living room/kitchen area. Henry followed on her heels every so often interjecting, "What is it? Aunt Emily? Aunt Emily!" while she continued to ignored him and mutter under her breath, "Pick up, pick up, c'mon! Pick up!"

As she paced around the kitchen, trying team member after team member, Henry noticed the open email on her laptop screen and his blood ran cold. Uncle Spencer had ran away?

He pushed a hand through his hair. He thought about Spencer's drug use, about how Gideon had run away. Henry's knowledge of both events was extremely iffy, but he knew enough to know that his mother and her colleagues had been worried about Spencer breaking down for years. But Spencer wouldn't just up and leave, would he? He wasn't that type. His own father had left him when he was a little boy. Surely he wouldn't do the same to Lily.

And to him.

It was a selfish thought, but it came nonetheless. Jack was like a brother, or a cousin, and therefore Aaron Hotchner was pretty close to Henry. It was undeniable that David Rossi wouldn't do anything it took to protect Henry and the other BAU Babies. And Derek Morgan was the type of man you definitely wanted to know - for a laugh, or for someone to have your back. But Spencer Reid was, undeniably, like a second father to Henry. It was to him Henry was the closest. It was to him Henry owed understanding multiplication back in elementary school, and winning the science fair in middle school, and trying his hardest - his _hardest_ - in high school in order to become not only one of the top students on the honour roll but also the valedictorian. Because Henry had always tried to do his best by his uncle Spencer, if only because he knew that, even if he didn't do his best, his uncle Spencer wouldn't care. His mom would, and his dad would - failing a test would be a HUGE problem, and having low grades when he could certainly do better would be a dissapointment - but to Spencer Reid, Henry at his worst was still good enough, which was all the more reason to try harder.

Henry knew it was, partly, maybe even mostly, because his mother and Spencer shared a connection that went beyond coworkers or even friends to almost siblings and never quite lovers. Not to say that Henry would ever wish Spencer was his father instead of William LaMontagne, nor to say that Jennifer Jareau and Spencer Reid didn't love their spouses. But Henry knew that, at one time, long ago, there had been something - even if only the littlest something - between them. And in a way, he couldn't help but feel that somehow that contributed to how close he and his godfather were. Because he hadn't been the first BAU Baby, but he had been the first one to have members of the team as their godparents. And that meant something.

Now, suddenly throwing Henry back into the present, came a sharp gasp from Emily.

"Reid!"

Henry flew to her side and Emily, seeing that this might be a matter concerning both of them, pressed speaker.

"Emily? Is that you?"

"Yes. Oh my gosh. Garcia said you ran away."

"I didn't run away, I merely took a vacation." Reid replied, in a matter-o-fact tone which managed to make even the most illogical situation sound reasonable.

Emily and Henry both looked at each other somewhat warily.

"A vacation...like, you'll come back?"

"I'm in Las Vegas."

"Oh?" But you could tell Emily didn't really care. She wanted an answer to her question.

"Yes, I'll come back. I'd never abandon my family, nor would I abandon my team."

"I never said that." Emily pointed out. "Is this about Gideon, Reid?"

"Gideon died -" you could hear Spencer's voice change a bit there, and he paused to collect himself - "died nearly two months ago."

"Come now, Uncle Spence, surely you don't need a statistic about the grieving process." Henry chirped, trying to lighten the mood.

"Henry? Is that you?" Spencer asked. He hadn't realized Henry was also in the room.

"Oh my gosh, Henry! You're date!" Emily exclaimed, suddenly remembering. The clock read five fifty-seven. "What time do you have to pick her up?"

"Six, but -" Henry began at the same time Spencer exclaimed, "Date!"

"Go, hon!" Emily urged, "You'll be late!"

"Good luck, Henry." Reid added in.

Henry nodded, threw in a goodbye, and left, his half-full Coke can abandoned on the kitchen counter as he raced out the door to catch a taxi and find Lucy's house. He dug into his pockets looking for the napkin with her number so he could call her and tell her he'd be late, but it wasn't there. All he had was the address he'd scribbled out on his arm - and address that had proven hard to find, as there were numerous Messers in the city.

And although he was both excited and nervous to see Lucy again, suddenly he wished there were some way to reschedule. Because all he could think about was Spencer "vacationing" in Vegas.

~~~ ***~~~

Lucy didn't know what to wear, because she didn't know what to expect. Would Henry take her to a club, or a nice restaurant? Should she dress up, or down? There had been so little time to plan and ask questions that, in the end, Lucy found herself standing in front of her mother and asking, "Mom, what should I wear?"

It wasn't like this was a big event. It was her first date, and it wasn't like she was desperate to impress Henry. Actually - she realized this as she curled her hair in front of the bathroom mirror - she didn't even know his last name. She'd have to ask him, and then have her dad run it through the system. After all, if Henry was some sort of criminal creep, it'd probably be smart that she knew it.

And so, at six o' clock on the dot, Lucy found herself sitting on the stairs by the door wearing dark-wash denim capris and a red spaghetti-strap shirt, her curled hair tumbling loosely down her back, a white sweater thrown over her shoulders, her purse in hand, her feet slipped into a pair of platform sandals.

At six o' seven, she had kicked off her shoes and rested her purse and sweater on the floor.

At six fifteen, she was sprawled across the stairs, re-reading a gossip magazine from two weeks ago.

And at six twenty, when there was finally a knock on the door, she looked at it wearily.

"Kiddo," said Danny as he walked into the room, "Sounds like your man has arrived."

Lucy dropped the magazine and picked herself up from the stairs, motioning her dad to leave the room as she opened the door and fixed Henry - for it was indeed Henry - with a look.

"You know," she said, "You aren't very good at keeping your word."

"I'm sorry," said Henry, "The traffic was bad."

"It always is," Lucy replied, "And anyway, you should typically leave your house at six fifty not _six_, in order to be on time...or at least, close to on time."

"Am I not close to on time?"

"Do you wear a watch?" Lucy countered.

Henry shook his head, so Lucy proferred up her own wrist. "Not close," she said as Henry slowly read the digital numbers, "to on time."

"No," he agreed, "Sorry," he said again.

Lucy shrugged and opened the door a bit wider, so that Henry could step in the house as she slipped her shoes back on, grabbed her sweater, and grabbed her purse. "I'm going now!" she called to her parents, "Bye!"

"Bye!" they called back.

Lucy pulled the door shut behind her and followed Henry down onto the street. "So are we going anywhere in particular?" she asked.

Responded Henry, "I was going to let you choose."

"What if my choice was for you to choose?"

"You know, you really don't make things easy for a guy."

"I might be a bit kinder," Lucy replied, "If said guy hadn't both forgotten to call me and kept me waiting for nearly half an hour."

"I'm -"

"Sorry. You've mentioned." Lucy said, a bit more curtly than she meant to.

"If you don't want to go out on this date, then we don't have to." Henry told her, stopping on the sidewalk. Lucy sighed and shook her head.

"You don't understand," she tried to explain, "It's not that I don't it's just...well...you aren't making a very good first impression."

"I know," Henry sighed, "It's just that something happened back home."

"Then why don't you go home?" Lucy asked.

"I just..."

"Just?" she pressed.

He shook his head, "Forget it," Henry said, and meant it. He didn't want to think about that, complicate things, unload everything on Lucy in one night. He just wanted to take her out for dinner and have a nice time. And he did know a place.

Maybe.

"Do you like Boston Pizza?" he asked. Lucy nodded. "Ok," he said, "Do you know where one is?"

Lucy replied that yes, she did, but they were going to have to take a taxi to get there. _(A/N Sorry to do this in the middle of the story. There's Boston Pizza in Canada, although I don't know about America. Anyway, in this fic, Boston Pizza is in America. Bascially, it's just this chain restaurant, but not a fast-food place. I can't think of a USA comparison. Sorry!) _

So, within another twenty minutes, they were being led to the back of the Boston Pizza restaurant, seated at a booth, and told their waitress would be with them shortly. As they flipped through the menus Lucy said, "So."

Henry looked up and smiled at her. "So?" he asked.

"I've been thinking. That woman who was at you with breakfast that day. That was Prentiss?"

"Yes."

"One of your 'aunts'?" Lucy inquired.

Henry nodded.

Seeing that he wasn't going to offer up any more information Lucy asked, "What's your last name, Henry?"

Henry grinned, "LaMontagne. I guess I should have told you that a while ago."

"Probably." Lucy agreed.

"Monroe-Messer," said Henry, "Hyphenated?"

"You bet."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"A brother, Jake. He's younger. How about you?"

"No, I'm an only child."

"Well that makes sense." Lucy replied without thinking about it.

"What?" asked Henry as the waitress came by and there was a short pause as they gave in their orders and returned their menus. "What do you mean?" Henry asked once the waitress was gone.

"Well, you're very self-confident and determined...and maybe a bit wrapped up in your own life. Like you've never had to worry about anyone else, any other sibling or whatever. And you've never been challenged growing up, really, because you have no siblings, and all your parents attention had always been on you."

"Well, that's impressive. Maybe you should be a profiler. Although, I'm a bit offended." Henry admitted.

Lucy shrugged, "Sorry," she replied before adding, "Anyway, my heart is set on being a CSI."

"Like your parents."

"Yep. Just like you want to be like yours."

"Wrong, actually," Henry corrected, "Neither of my parents are actually profilers. My dad was a cop. My mom is a media liaison. She _works_ with profilers -"

Lucy rolled her eyes and cut him of with, "Stop it, Henry, it's close enough." she gave him a good-hearted grin.

And then her phone rang.

And then his rang.

After shooting one another looks, they both answered them.

"Hello?"

"Hello?"

~~~***~~~

On the other end of Lucy's phone was Jessica.

"Jessie?" asked Lucy, "Where are you?"

"Y-y-you have to come get me, Luce." Jessica blubbered.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Lucy asked as Jessica burst into tears.

"Shh, shh. What is it, Jessie? Shh, Jessie, what is it?" Lucy murmured, doing her best to comfort her friend. She looked over at Henry, whose face wore the same troubled expression hers did. He understood the message in her eyes and waved over the waitress, telling her to cancel their orders. Then, with both of them still on their cell phones, they exited the restaurant and stood outside on the busy street, both trying to understand the incomprehensible.

~~~***~~~

Lily Reid was on the other end of Henry's phone, every bit as tearful as Lucy's friend Jessica.

"I - I didn't know who else to call!" she exclaimed.

_"Lily?"_ Henry asked incredulously.

All the BAU Babies had one another's phone numbers and email addresses. Once upon a time (due to them being close in age) the BAU agents used to joke about Henry and Lily dating. When they were younger, Lily had been one of those little girls who was quite affectionate and would follow Henry around the BAU offices or the home of whomever was babysitting them, attempting a kiss or hug, but that had been back when she was five. Now they rarely spoke, and if they did, it was only when they saw one another at usually sombre occaisons - like Jason Gideon's funeral. So Lily's phone call was some surprise.

"I know," Lily said, "I'm sorry. It's...it's just...Dad's gone!"

"I know," Henry echoed, "Las Vegas. He'll be back, don't worry." although he wasn't one hundred percent convinced, Henry felt obliged to say this.

"But you don't understand!" Lily howled, "I," - a deep breath - "I have to tell him something important."

Henry caught Lucy's eye and sighed to himself. Such bad timing. It seemed he and Lucy Monroe-Messer were truly doomed. Signalling to the waitress, he told her to forget their order, and then he and Lucy both got up from the table and went outside, leaning against the restaurant as they talked and listened, but not to one another.

"Lily, are you pregnant?" Henry inquired.

"No!" she hissed.

"Is your mom having an affair?"

"NO!" she snapped, even more forcefully than before.

"Than what can you possibly have to tell him?" Henry asked, confused.

"You're less intimidating than Jack." Lily said quickly, her voice hushed.

"Huh?" asked Henry.

"You're less intimidating than Jack, otherwise I would tell him. Because I need to tell someone older, who would know what to do. But I can't...I just can't tell one of our parents. I need to tell someone who would understand."

"Ok," Henry said with a sigh, "Ok then, Lily. Tell me."

* * *

_~~~ Going to cut off there. Want to know more? Then review! Please, please, please! :) ~~~_


	7. Chapter 7

_~~~ Thank you very much for reviews, favourites, and alerts! I appreciate them all! ~~~_

* * *

Henry rolled over in his bed. A cool breeze blew from his window, and he shivered a bit before openining one eye and sighing. Last night had certainly not gone as planned. He and Lucy had hung up their phones at almost the exact same time.

"I have to go," Lucy had said regretfully.

"I figured as much." Henry replied.

"This time, I'll call you." Lucy promised before jumping in a cab and being driven off to god knew where. Henry was left to look down at the cell phone in his hand and think about what he had just been told. What Lily needed so desperately to tell Spencer, her father, his godfather. And that was this:

She, as both her parents had been, was a drug addict.

That was how Spencer had met Natalia, at one of the Narcotic Anonymous meetings he used to go to whenever he had the opprotunity (which, due to the serial killers of America, wasn't often). Natalia Wren was three years younger than him and a nurse who had become addicted to painkillers.

Henry didn't know how Lily had come in contact with the drugs. Maybe she just wanted to see what is was her parents had become so attached to in their mid-twenties. Either way, she was what she was, and that was addicted. Spencer's leaving had pushed Lily to realize that she wanted help, but she just couldn't bring herself to tell her mother, especially when her father wasn't home. Henry didn't know what she expected him to do, so he had said, "Lily, you know what the best thing is to do. Tell Emily, or Penelope, or my mother. They'll understand, Lily. They're Spencer's best-friends." Lily had agreed and thanked him and hung up, and Henry didn't know what she'd done after that.

He cast a weary glance at his phone, which lay on the desk across from him. He snatched it and checked it, but there were no messages so, he went back to sleep.

~~~***~~~

Jessica had been right where she said she'd be - standing in front of their old high school with black mascara tears running down her cheeks, blood dripping from a cut on her forhead that wasn't deep and didn't look like it needed any sort of professional medical attention. Lucy hugged her friend, tugged her into the taxi, patted her hair and whispered small words to her until they reached the Monroe-Messer household. Lindsay and Danny had been waiting up for their daughter, expecting either a bright-eyed Lucy suddenly in love or a sour-faced Lucy done with the male species, but instead opened the door to find their daughter with her nearly hysterical and clearly traumatized best-friend.

"She was...mugged." Lucy said, for lack of a better word.

Lindsay jumped into action, tending to Jessica's forehead, directing Lucy to go get a clean pair of pyjamas and a warm blanket, flipping on the kettle, calling Jessica's mother. In the end it was decided that Jessica would sleep over for the night, and it was as she was sipping her tea and wearing Lucy's pyjamas, a band-aid stuck to her forehead, that she explained.

"I was wa-walking h-home," she hiccuped, "W-w-when th-th-th-th-"

"Calm down, Jessie. It's ok." Lucy said reassuringly.

Jessica nodded. "This guy," she said, "Came out of - of nowhere. He pushed me against the school and I - I - I thought he was going to rape me or something but he just...he took my p-purse and t-tried to -" she gulped, shook her head, unable to finish her sentence. "So I fought him off, but I hurt myself, and then he ran off. It...took me a while to beg a quater off someone...but I did, and found a pay phone and I didn't know who else t-to call..."

"We'll have to file a report in the morning." Danny said with a sigh, "I'm sorry that happened to ya, Jess."

Jessica shrugged, "I am too." she had replied.

Now it was the morning and Lucy was seeing Jessica off as she walked with her mother back to their house. Once back inside her own home, Lucy eyed the phone for a minute before shaking her head. She'd wait another day before giving Henry a call.

~~~***~~~

Two days later and Henry was waiting on a bench in Central Park. It didn't take Lucy very long before she found him. They had planned to meet here, after an extensive round of telephone tag (she had left five messages and he had left six before he'd finally had his phone on when she called). She offered out a small box of fries. "I picked them up on the way in," she explained.

Henry smiled and stood up, taking a fry. Despite their many fractured attempts at getting to know one another better, he felt quite comfortable around Lucy by now. "How are things with you?" he asked.

"Ok." she replied. "My friend, the one who called that one because she was attacked? She's gone back to New Mexico."

"Oh. Wanted to get out of the city?"

"Yeah. How's your friend doing?" Lucy asked.

"My mother helped her out, and her dad came back right away. So now...well, she's getting help. It's a big emotional mess. I'm actually kind of glad I'm not at home." Henry confessed.

Lucy smiled sadly. The day was cool, the sky threatening to rain, and the two began to make their way through the Park. Their silence wasn't quite awkward, and it wasn't quite comfortable, but simply a silence which Henry decided to break by asking, "What's something you never tell anyone?"

"Hmm?" Lucy asked, looking over at him.

"Something you never tell people. Like, no one."

"My middle name." she admitted.

"Why? What is it?" Henry inquired.

"I don't think it's very fair of you to ask what's something I never tell people and then make me tell you what it is." Lucy pointed out.

"True," Henry agreed before adding, "My middle name's William, after my father and grandfather."

"What's something you never tell people?" Lucy asked.

"That I've figured them out." Henry replied.

"What do you mean?" Lucy questioned, a small line of confusion forming between her brows.

"I've been profiling all my life, Lucy. That's all I've ever wanted to do so I...well, I practice."

"And you think you've figured everyone out."

"Yes."

"Have you figured me out?" Lucy asked.

A pause, and then: "...yes."

"I don't think you know me as well as you think you do." Lucy disagreed.

"But I do." Henry said humbly, with a shrug. They kept walking, but Henry noticed when Lucy's stride became a bit faster, an indication that she was just a bit ticked off with his smugness.

"Alright then. Shoot."

"Ok. You are your parents' perfect child, but you're not all that shy. Street-smart, but not super-cautious. Driven but not obsessed. You plan out things. You think, sometimes overthink. You don't act on impulse."

"You don't _know_ that!" Lucy exclaimed, horrified, mostly just because what he said sounded about right.

"But I _do_!" Henry protested.

Lucy shot him a glare, but Henry wouldn't - more fittingly, couldn't - shut up. It was a curse of some sort. "I bet when people ask your middle name," he said quietly, "You just tell them you don't have one."

Lucy gave a huff, "Henry, this isn't going to work." she said finally, "Just go. Please. And, since you know me _so_ well, you know I've been thinking about this a lot."

Henry nodded sadly, didn't even argue as he turned away from her and carried on his way back to the street. She watched him go and felt a pang. It was all so wrong. He had pretty much lost her number. Their first date had been grossly interupted. They had barely been able to contact each other. He kept ticking her off. She didn't believe in "Fate" like Henry apparently did, but if she had, she would have definitely thought all of that was a sign that they were not meant to be together.

But as she watched him continue on his way, growing smaller and smaller the further he went, she regretted making him go.

"Henry!" she yelled. But he didn't hear her. Another sign, but Lucy wasn't one for signs. Never had been. She was sure Henry probably knew that already, since he was so smart. God! She was still mad at him. It just wasn't right, someone who barely knew her knowing her like that. It felt like a betrayal, or an invasion of privacy. And she realized, with a jolt, that she wanted to prove him wrong.

So she ran after Henry. "Wait," she panted.

"Wha-?" Henry began to ask as he turned around. But before she could even fully think her idea through, Lucy stretched up on her tip-toes and kissed him hard on the lips. He kissed her back, held her close for a moment, and when they broke apart she smiled up at him.

"Still think you know me that well?" she asked.

Henry shrugged, his smile impish, his eyes sparkling mischeviously as he replied, "If I don't, I'm willing to."

She laughed, then looped her fingers through his as they walked onto the street.

"Does this mean I get to know your middle name?" Henry asked.

She looked at him, smirked and said, "I don't have one, remember?"

* * *

_~~~ Chapter was short, but worth it, right? :D Next chapter will be dedicated to whoever can guess Lucy's middle name! ~~~_


	8. Chapter 8

_~~~ Chapter goes to **Hermyatt** and **Flinchymcflinchster**. They didn't guess correctly, but they were the only ones who did guess, plus they're both wicked-awesome people! :) Thanks for/to reviews, favourites, alerts, and readers! Also, the correct guess (of Lucy's middle name) is still up for grabs... ~~~_

* * *

Danny Messer caught his daughter by the arm as she flew out the door in a flurry of excitment. "And just when do I get to meet this guy, eh, Luce?" he asked - but a giggle, a grin, a kiss on the cheek and the promise of "soon" was the only response he got.

Emily Prentiss checked over her shoulder numerous times as she walked down the street, effectively mystified when her shadow, once six feet tall and blonde, suddenly returned to being a black silhouette on the sidewalk.

Marla and Avery grew more and more perplexed - and curious - as the messages they left on Lucy's phone were never returned, but they shrugged at one another and explained it away as the battery being dead.

Penelope Garcia smirked in her computer-filled room at the BAU headquaters when, upon checking her email (something she did at work when she managed to catch a free moment) she found that the only response from Henry to her multitude of letters was - _Things are good here. I met a girl._

And so the days passed, mid-June quickly morphing into late-June quickly morphing into early-July. Henry and Lucy spent almost every second together, never stopping to wonder whether what they were experiencing was a summer romance or one of the lasting variety. And whether it was Lucy taking Henry on a tour of the city where she had grown up, or Henry explaining with pleasure all the reasons he wanted to be part of the FBI, the two were nearly always happy together. Their fights came to a total of three - two minor, one explosive, all resolved and forgiven within forty-eight hours.

Out in Montana, Jacob Monroe-Messer spent a lazy summer with his grandparents.

In Quantico, Lily Reid dealt with a drug addiction.

Right there in New York City, an unsub was tracked down and caught, and Emily Prentiss shared a celebratory drink with her new friends in the CSI department.

Lucy and Henry, however, were oblivious to all that. And it wasn't until July seventh, when four events occured (all major in their own ways) that the two were broken from their blissful bubble.

It began, as most days began, with Lucy riding her bicycle over to Henry's apartment.

~~~***~~~

Lucy flipped her hair over her shoulder. She'd curled it today, and in her pocket was a crisp twenty dollar bill (something which her mother, in such a good mood that they'd finally caught their killer, had leant her. Lucy had yet to find a job, and Lindsay was typically reluctant to lend cash under the belief that Lucy was perfectly capable to make money herself, so this was a rarity).

She rolled her bike over to rest against a lightpost near Henry's building and then chained it up, her only option due to the absense of bike racks. She made her way to the stairwell after buzzing her way into Henry's apartment building - his habit of using the stairs instead of the elevator had grown on her. She knocked on Henry's door, and when he opened it, he was shirtless.

"That," Lucy informed him, "is just cruel."

Henry grinned, pulled her close, and kissed her on the forehead. Lucy kicked her foot back absentmindedly and shut the door. Henry laughed.

"So what's on the agenda for today?" he asked as he went to the fridge and pulled out a water bottle.

"I don't know," she replied before reaching over, snatching the bottle from Henry's grip and taking a swig of it. Henry playfully rolled his eyes at her. "Hey," she said, "I don't need to ask permission. I rode all the way here. You haven't even gotten dressed yet."

"I'm wearing pants, aren't I?"

"Boxers," Lucy replied smugly, "Don't count."

"They aren't boxers!" Henry protested, although he was lying.

"Get dressed!" Lucy exclaimed, as she flopped down onto a chair.

Henry complied, going into his room and throwing on some clothes. As he did so, Lucy looked around the tiny place. Lucky neither of them were claustrophobic, she thought, not for the first time. She began to twirl her necklace around her fingers, deep in thought, planning out the day's activities. What could they do? What _couldn't_ they do? Maybe they should look for jobs together...or just go see a movie? Meet up with Marla and Avery, and their boyfriends? (Avery always had a boyfriend. Marla was fantastic for finding a date on the spot.) Perhaps just go for a walk, a long, long walk...and pick up ice-cream along the way...

Henry stepped out of his room, put his hands on Lucy's shoulders, and startled her so much that she shrieked and jerked away, her necklace snapping off as she jumped.

"Jesus, Henry!" she proclaimed and then, "Oh my gosh! My _necklace_!" she cried.

Henry, at first jokey, suddenly became sympathetic and caring. "Luce," he said, bending down to examine the chain and its broken clasp, which she now held defeatedly in her palm.

"My parents...will kill me." Lucy said flatly, although this was not true. But Lucy was heartbroken (she really was; it was a pretty piece of jewlerry and meant a lot to her that her parents had given it to her) and didn't quite know what else to say.

"It's all my fault." Henry said, "So I'll fix it. Give it to me, and I'll take it to be repaired. I'll pay and everything."

"I can't let you do that. I don't blame you at all." Lucy responded, almost automatically - except, she realized, it was true.

In fact, things began to dawn on Lucy, realizations suddenly creeping up on her. She didn't blame Henry at all. Not even a little bit. And even if she had, she would have forgiven him within the second. Because the fact was, she loved him. _Oh, my gosh,_ she thought,_ I love him!_

Things had been happening so swiftly she hadn't once had time to slow down and think about what was occuring. But now time seemed to slow down and stretch out as she numbly cradled her broken necklace and Henry made promises - full-fledged, one-hundred-percent-meant promises - to get it fixed. She loved Henry. Yes. She had been in love once before, to Jeremy Hummel, her "high school sweetheart". They'd broken up shortly after graduation; it had been a mutual decision, but Lucy was still crushed nonetheless. Since then she'd had a number of dates, just as many boyfriends, a couple serious ones. However this was the first time since then that Lucy truly found herself in love. Not falling in love, not feeling she had the potential to love, but actual love.

"You know what, Henry?" Lucy asked, "Forget it." she gave him a smile and a peck on the lips, dropping her broken necklace into the back pocket of her jeans. She got up from the splintery wooden chair and inquired, "Ready to go?"

When Henry replied with yes, they headed on out the door. Lucy was calm. Normal.

Inside, she had gone insane.

So when they stepped out onto the street only to discover Jessica stepping out of a taxi, Lucy was secretly relieved. And when Henry insisted that she and Jessie catch up - because they had a LOT of catching up to do - Lucy was relieved even more so.

Because she loved Henry. That was obvious.

But she didn't know what to do with that knowledge just yet.

~~~***~~~

Henry grinned himself stupid.

Lucy was going to be so pleased. Henry held the broken chain with the circular charm hanging off of it and just smiled, smiled, smiled. He ran his thumb over the engraving on the back. He'd tell Lucy he took it, of course - wouldn't want her to think she'd lost it - but honestly, pulling it out of her pocket when he'd hugged her goodbye had been too easy; he wouldn't be surprised if she already knew.

He felt bad. Guilty. So he'd fix it. But it was more than that. He wanted to.

And now he headed down the street (for he had managed to gain some understanding of where to go in this chaotic city) towards his aunt Emily's summer home. Recently he'd spoken to her only briefly, but he hadn't seen her in person for about two and a half weeks. And while he understood that this summer wasn't planned so that they'd be tied at the hip, he still knew something about courtesy, and courtesy was visiting the person who had brought him to NYC - and, ultimately, Lucy - in the first place.

The door to the apartment complex was propped open with a rock when Henry arrived, and while he wasn't sure that was all too good legal-wise, he decided to overlook it as it was convenient to him - no leaning on the buzzer necessary. He made his way up the stairs to the fourth floor, knocking a couple times on Emily's door once he had made his way there.

He stood boredly as he waited for the door to open, and when the door finally did open, Henry opened his mouth to begin to apologize for getting the wrong place.

For it was a man who opened the door, a couple inches taller than Henry, with dark hair slightly greying and the same amount of wrinkles that his father had. He was wearing the same amount of clothes Henry had been wearing when he answered the door to Lucy only fifteen or so minutes before, so Henry was carefully averting his gaze.

Which was why he didn't notice, at first, the woman in the background with the sheets bundled around her.

And why it took him a moment to realize the guy looked familar.

That cop, from the station, the one who always referred to him as...

"Kid. You gotta reason to be here?" asked Detective Flack, clearly not happy to have Henry interupt his and Emily's sleep-in.

Henry turned bright red, looking beyond Flack in order to appeal to Emily. "Jesus! Aunt Emily, I'm sorry...I didn't realize -"

"Ok, kid," Detective Flack decided, "Time to go."

"Come back later, Henry." Emily called out gently, "I'll send you a text or something."

"Yup. Ok." Henry agreed hastily, giving a quick thumbs-up as he turned his gaze away fully, looking at the wall behind him and hustling away before the door was shut in his face. As he hurried down the hall, he could hear the small laughs coming from that cop and his sort-of godmother. Henry felt so mortified. He wasn't a little kid who stumbled in on his parents having sex.

However, what had just occurred seemed, to Henry, every bit as bad.

_...Aunt Emily..Detective...??_

No. He couldn't think about it. He walked briskly down the stairs and out the building and -

A scream cut through the air.

Henry turned towards the sound, his neck snapping to the left, just in time to see - like so many other people could see - a girl being shoved into a small, sleek black car. Brown curls bounced down her back, and with her heels on she stood almost eye-to-eye with her attacker. Then suddenly a knife was pulled, she was stabbed, and once thrown into the car, the car took off, speeding through the mob of taxis on the road while the attacker sprinted off on foot. It all happened so quickly that by the time anyone stepped forward to stop it, it had finished.

Henry felt himself begin to shake.

The girl who had just been kidnapped...he was too far away to be sure but...she had looked so much like...

Lucy.

* * *

_~~~ 5 reviews for an update. Yeah, I know, it's a total b_tch thing to do but...it's what I'm goina do. And Rhi-la, Prentiss/Flack was for you. Smile! :D ~~~_


	9. Chapter 9

_~~~ Alright, so I know I had a chapter nine, but now this is the new, ultra-amazing chapter nine. Very, very sorry for the slow updating, but it's Christmas break now so I should get better at it...I hope..._

_Anyway, the begining part is basically the same, however those who read it previously may want to re-read it as a tiny, but important part did change._

_**The following is the author's note from the old chapter nine:**_

_First: I got my 5 reviews, and many more favourites and alerts. Thanks so much, I really appreciate them all. I would have update sooner, but I've been REALLY busy with school._

_Second: WHOA! Did you guys watch this week's Criminal Minds? Craziness! So I'd like to say, once again, it stops at the season four...um...episode before the finale, I guess. Let's make it so Hotch was never stabbed, and Hailey never killed. Sound good? Hope that's not too confusing. :)_

_Enjoyyy! ~~~_

* * *

"Alright kid, why don't you start from the begining?" Detective Flack requested.

Henry rolled his eyes in exasperation. "There is no begining," he stated, "I came outside, heard a scream, saw a woman being pushed into a car. Stabbed first. I'm probably not the only witness -"

"No, you're probably not. But, you're probably the only one who didn't flee the scene. That means, you're the only one I'll be taking a witness report from. Now, what'd this woman look like?"

"Lucy. I think -"

"Elaborate, kid."

"_Don't_ call me kid."

"Hey. You wanna take this down to the station?" Detective Flack threatened.

Henry rolled his eyes again.

His worry for Lucy had not yet been set aside, for Flack had been at Henry's side almost instantly, clearly having heard about the stab-and-abduction. He was fully clothed (Emily nowhere to been seen) and obviously meant buisness. He refused to listen to Henry, even confiscated his phone, and instead inisisted on questioning him.

"Hey Flack, what do we have today?" Danny Messer inquired upon arriving at the scene. Seeing who Flack was standing with he added, "Well well. If it isn't the boy who stole my little girl for the summer. How you doing, Henry?"

"Good -" Henry began.

"Henry here is a witness. Tell Detective Messer how helpful you're being, kid." Flack said, grinning horribly at Henry.

"Ah, take it easy on 'im, Flack." Danny chuckled.

Henry decided Danny Messer deserved to know that his daughter may be the victim, "Lucy -"

"That's enough out of you. Now, what'd this car look like?" Flack asked.

"Black. Expensive. Where's Aunt Emily?" Henry decided answering questions would get his cell phone back faster. He also decided Aunt Emily was more likely to listen to him.

"Hey. I'm asking the questions here. Now what are you in school for, kid? What do you want to do?"

"BAU. Same as -"

"Yeah yeah yeah, got it. Let's pretend you're an FBI agent right now. You're going to have to answer my questions with some respect, ok kid?"

"Sure. While we're at it, if I'm an FBI agent, you're going to have to refer to me as Agent LaMontagne, not kid."

Danny snorted. "He's got you there, Flack. Now, is this a case in need of me, or should I go elsewhere?"

Flack motioned to where the sidewalk had been blocked off. "Knife was dropped over there."

"Gotcha." Danny nodded and went to it.

"Get outta here, kid." Flack said to Henry, tossing him his phone.

"Yessir." Henry muttered, nearly crashing in to Emily Prentiss as he caught the phone and turned to leave.

"Henry!" Emily jumped, adding sternly: "I don't want you involved in whatever crime just occurred."

"Too late. I'm a witness." Henry chirped, almost proudly.

Emily sighed. "Of course you are."

Henry nodded brightly, remember Lucy, and flipped open his phone.

Relief washed over him as she answered, but her tone instantly alarmed him once more.

~~~***~~~

"So tell me everything that's happened since you left. Are you feeling...better? I - I don't know, Jessie. How are you?"

"How am I? I'd be a lot better if I had a hot boyfriend like yours! Gosh! Tell me _everything._ I want _details_." Jessica exclaimed.

Lucy giggled shyly, "What is there to tell? He's incredibly sweet..."

"Uh-huh," Jessica nodded.

"A real gentleman..."

"Go on," Jessica urged.

"Attractive, as you saw..."

"C'mon, Luce! Juicy stuff! Is he a good kisser? How -"

"Stop _right _there," Lucy said, holding out her hand, "I do _not_ kiss and tell. You know that." she grinned.

Jessica rolled her eyes, "Yeah, yeah," she replied breezily.

"Wait -" said Lucy suddenly, cutting off both their giggles.

"Wha -?"

"Holy shit! Look over there!" Lucy exclaimed, pointing.

Jessica saw it too, now. A woman howling, sobbing, falling to her knees and pointing wildly at a man holding a kicking child, "He has my baby!" she yelled, "Someone, stop him!"

"HEY!" Lucy yelled from where she stood, not too far away, "STOP! NYPD!"

But it was too late. The man jumped into an inconspicious, but obviously pricey car, black in colour, and it sped off.

Lucy ran up to the hysterical woman and tried to console her, but it was impossible. Jessica dialled 911.

"You - you said NYPD?" the woman hiccupped, "You - you're with the police?"

"What?" Lindsay murmured, "No. No...I don't know why I said that."

Police sirens could be heard whirring in the distance and soon they pulled up in front of Lucy, Jessica, and the woman. Lucy crossed her fingers and hoped for Don Flack, but the cop who exited the car was female.

"Ma'am," the cop addressed the woman, who now had mascara streaks down her cheeks, "I'm Detective Parker," she flashed her badge, "What happened?"

"My - my - my son, Jeffery, he - he- he..."

"Take a deep breath, ma'am. Why don't you start from the begining. Can you tell me your name?" Detective Parker requested, all but ignoring Lucy and Jessica.

"Mo...Monique Derson."

"Alright, Mrs. Derson. Now, what were you doing when your son was abducted."

"We - we...abducted! Oh my god!"

"Mrs. Derson!" Detective Parker barked impatiently. Lucy flinched. She vowed never to be so heartless to a woman who just lost her child.

"We were just walking down the street!" Mrs. Derson wailed, "Just walking! The man came out - out - out of nowhere!"

"So you...fought back?" Detective Parker prodded.

"No, no - I screamed. And then this young woman here," Mrs. Derson looked upon Lucy as one may look upon their saviour, "She yelled she was a cop. That scared him - scared him - scared him off, I think. He -" she hiccupped, "Jumped into a car with Jeffery."

Lucy had Detective Parker's interest now. "You're a policewoman?" she asked sceptically.

"N-no..." Lucy admitted hesitantly.

Detective Parker smirked, "Riiight." she called out to one of her colleagues to stay with Mrs. Derson and question her before moving on to Lucy, pulling her aside.

"Your name?"

"Lucy Monroe-Messer," Lucy replied strongly, hoping the detective would recognize at least one of the surnames. She didn't.

"Miss Monroe-Messer, what reason do you have for falsely claiming to be part of the NYPD?"

"I - I don't know!" Lucy exclaimed, caught up with being referred to as _Miss Monroe-Messer_. Her lengthy last name often cause people to choose one - something which bothered Lucy to the extreme - or skip over it altogether, and just call her 'miss'. "I guess..." she attempted to explain, "It was instinctual."

"Instinctual." Detective Parker repeated, just as sceptical as before.

"Yes!" Lucy insisted, "Both my parents are NYPD! I'll be one one day, too! I just, I just panicked!"

Most people can tell when a person doesn't paticularily like them, and Lucy could tell that about Detective Parker now.

"I think I'm going to have to take you in for questioning." Detective Parker decided. Lucy shot Jessica a worried glance - Jessica had been standing nearby, eavesdropping on the conversation - and then, her phone began to buzz.

She shot Detective Parker a glance, decided the detective couldn't get anymore fed up with her, and answered.

"Hello?"

"Lucy! Thank god!"

"Henry? Is something the matter?"

"No, no, not if you're ok - are...are you ok? Lucy? You sound...worried."

"Something awful just happened, Henry. Some little boy just got kidnapped, and now I have to - it's a long story. Do you think you could contact Don somehow, or my dad?"

There was a pause, and Lucy looked up at Detective Parker, who was frowning. "Hurry up, Miss Monroe-Messer," she said disaprovingly, like a grouchy schoolteacher.

"Here he is, Luce -" Henry said, and then: "Lucy? Whatsa matter?" it was her father, and Lucy flooded with relief.

"Dad, I...I witnessed an abduction and said I was NYPD and now I have to go down to the police station and -"

"Whoa whoa Luce, talk a bit slower, babe. What's goin' on?"

Detective Parker said, "Is that your legal guardian?"

Lucy glowered. She was twenty years old, not two. All the same, she nodded, and the moment she did so, Detective Parker snatched the phone. As the detective and Danny Messer began arguing back and forth, Jessica hurried to Lucy and whispered, "Are you in trouble?"

"I don't know," Lucy replied, "I just - that poor boy! And his poor, poor mother!"

~~~***~~~

Henry stood by Danny Messer as he yelled into the phone. He made a mental note never to break Lucy's heart. And if he did, to leave the country ASAP. Danny Messer was terrifying when he was mad.

"Are you kiddin' me? I've been NYPD for nearly forty years. You tellin' me you're takin' in my daughter 'cause she calls NYPD! Who knows what that man woulda done if she hadn't!"

A pause.

"Questioning, I understand. What you don't understand is that my Lucy ain't a suspect but a witness, and you better not be treatin' her -"

Another pause, shorter this time.

"Well you ain't treatin' her nicely else she wouldn't be askin' for me, would she? Naw naw naw. Lucy could hold her own if it were questioning. She knows all the regulations -"

Another pause, longer.

"Lucy? I'll be right there. Don't you worry 'bout a thing, sweetheart, you just answer their questions, alright? -- What's that? No, no, I can get someone else to -- Are you sure? Alright. Alright. I love you too. Tell ya what, I'll send Henry, how 'bout that? Ok. Ok. Bye."

Danny handed Henry the phone. "And you make sure she doesn't get in trouble for anything she hasn't done." he added.

Henry nodded, "Yes sir."

He wondered how he was expected to find out where Lucy and Jessica were, but at this point, he was too scared to ask.

~~~***~~~

_"Henry!"_ Lucy exclaimed happily, running to him and hugging him tightly. Henry hugged her back, just as tightly, and kissed the top of her head.

Detective Parker had left, after taking Lucy's name and a witness report, along with Jessica's name and a witness report that was, for the most part, identical to her friend's.

Mrs. Derson had departed as well, to call her husband, to anxiously await the return of her son, to do whatever else it was that those unfortunate, fractured families did once their child had been taken from them.

Jessica said, "I'm going to head home, Lucy. I'll call you later, alright? This has been...to much excitement for me."

"Oh, Jessie. I'm so sorry, I -"

Jessica shook her head and smiled, so the two hugged and said goodbye.

Once Jessica was gone Lucy looked up at Henry, whose arm was wrapped around her shoulder as they walked down the street. She said, "Henry...you don't know what it's like, I..."

She trailed off and Henry said nonchalantly, "Actually, I saw a woman stabbed and kidnapped not too long before I called you. That's why I called you. I thought she was you."

_"Henry!"_ Lucy yelped, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?!"

"I -" Henry began, but Lucy was muttering to herself.

"What are the chances? What are the chances...?"

"She was around our age, though, not a little boy. Anyway, she was stabbed, too, not picked up and tossed into a car -"

"But what did the car look like?"

"Huh? Oh. It was...black. Expensive."

Lucy shuttered and whispered hauntedly, "So was the one I saw."

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_~~~ Hope that makes up for slow updates! I do have something planned now...or, at least something for the next chapter or two. Reviews greatly appreciated! :) ~~~_


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